Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Our Own Fiscal Cliffs

Many
who follow this blog have been involved in non-profits and congregations professionally
or as volunteers, so we know about things like “fiscal cliffs,” when expenses
exceed donations. And many of us have coped with minimal incomes as clergy,
teachers, writers, artists, and service providers, and have braved fiscal cliffs
of our own when bills exceed income.

Some
years ago I was grateful to have income from leading a weekend retreat, glad to
be slightly ahead of the game financially. Then I broke a tooth, requiring
unexpected dental costs that emptied my checking account. There were two ways I
could interpret that situation: feel despair that my earnings had been depleted
by this incident; or feel blessed that I had the resources to cover the
unanticipated event. I chose the latter, though I teetered precariously on the
brink of a less grateful response!

Biblical
scholar John Dominic Crossan has suggested that Jesus’ appeal to the poor came
because of his attention to the body and its needs, thus the healings, thus the
references in the Lord’s Prayer to “forgive us our debts” and “give us this day
our daily bread.” Crossan says that bread and debts “are the two ancient ghosts
that haunt the peasant imagination.” Often ours as well.

Those
of us in helping or creative vocations often struggle to make ends meet. In the
early ’90s I took a job that required me parking my car in an upscale Los
Angeles neighborhood. Walking past one fine home after another, I thought how
Hollywood occasionally makes movies about rich people who have an epiphany and give
it all up to serve the less fortunate. I joked with my coworkers that I thought
there should also be films about people who have spent their lives helping the
less fortunate who have an epiphany and give it all up to become wealthy! (I
can guess that you might now be thinking of prosperity gospel and mega-church
pastors!)

Preliminary
studies indicate that the area of the brain stimulated by winning the lottery
is similarly stimulated by giving to charity, a kind of neurological “reward”
for doing good. That may be why the best book on serving others that I have
read, How Can I Help? (Ram Dass and
Paul Gorman) offers examples that the least patronizing and most satisfying help
is experienced as mutually beneficial.

When
his cheery nephew comes to wish him “Merry Christmas” and invite him to
Christmas dinner, Scrooge resists and, regarding his poor nephew’s observance
of the holiday, retorts, “Much good it has ever done you!”

To
which the nephew replies, “There are many things from which I might have
derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say.”

Many
of us have derived and even promoted good without much profit. Thus we are more
likely to take seriously all those end-of-the-year requests for donations from charities
and ministries.

Let’s
all feel good this Christmas by making it a little easier for our favorite
do-gooders to avoid fiscal cliffs.

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ABOUT CHRIS...

Chris Glaser has a ministry of writing and speaking. Since graduation from Yale Divinity School in 1977, Chris has served in a variety of parish, campus, editorial, and interim posts. He has spoken to hundreds of congregations, campuses, and communities throughout the U.S. and Canada, and published a dozen best-selling books on spirituality, sexuality, vocation, contemplation, scripture, sacrament, theology, marriage, and death.